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Sharknado and the Social Media Science Fiction

By now you've heard that Sharknado drew 387,000 mentions on social media. Some of them were jokey joke snarks from celebrities and everything. Whoa!

You heard all about it. And saw people talking about it. But you didn't see the movie. Because according to ratings, very few people actually watched.

Commenting on the crazy activity, the film's uh, director, Anthony Ferrante, had this to say: "I have never been part of something this crazy ... the whole world is watching my insane little movie and talking about it."

Talking, yes. Watching, no. Keep in mind too, it was a relatively slow news day on social media that night. There wasn't anything else to snark about or get in political arguments that night.

I.E., Folks were bored and needed entertainment that night. And they chose to get it on social media, where they made fun of your movie, rather than watch your movie where they might have seen commercials that help keep the movies and the network running.

Sharknado's writer, Thunder Levin said this: "I'd love to take credit it for myself, but I think it was simply a combination of the title being the end-all, be-all of ridiculous movie titles, and a simple but obvious marketing strategy."

If by "obvious marketing strategy," you mean a whole bunch of people talked about your movie but very few actually watched it, then yes, it was an obvious marketing strategy.

Put another way: looking at TV By The Numbers You'll see plain as day: Pawn Stars and reruns of Family Guy and Big Bang Theory owned the top five with huge ratings at 1.4. Down in the middle, is Sharknado movie, registering .04 on the list. I mean House Hunters International beat it.

It still seems that a social media channel able to generate advertising revenue for both itself, and the things it promotes is living in the realm of science fiction.